In the latest intalment in our series of 'WiiWare week' features, developers have revealed that Nintendo has been keenly capitalising on publicly-aired frustrations with Xbox Live Arcade to help drive the number of games produced for its imminent digital distribution platform.

According to our sources, Nintendo has been actively briefing studios on what it says is the increased flexibility of WiiWare, from cheaper development through to more flexible pricing, makes it a better service to make games for - painting a stark contrast to the likes of Xbox Live Arcade.

Microsoft recently halved the royalties paid for first-party Xbox Live Arcade from 70 per cent to 35 per cent on games that make under $4m in revenues (the rate rises closer to 50 per cent when the revenues go over that amount, Develop understands), and Nintendo has been keen to take advantage of the anger amongst studios over the changes, directing them towards its own platform instead.

Key to its pitch is that WiiWare isn't populated by retro releases, unlike Xbox Live Arcade and to a lesser extent the PlayStation Store - something Jeff Minter had previously gone on the record to complain about.

"Nintendo has made it very clear to us that we'll not only be making a better royalty rate from WiiWare games, but we'll also have a better chance of selling games - the service won't be clogged up with the retro titles that have blighted the chances of many independent studios on Xbox Live Arcade," said one studio business development boss, speaking to Develop under conditions of anonymity.

Added another WiiWare developer, who also didn't want to be named: "Frankly, we're not looking at making games for Xbox Live Arcade because the service is full of ****," he said, pointing towards the service's number of retro remakes.

You can read the full report on how Nintendo is waging - and it seems winning - what one developer called a "secret war" here.

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Frankly, we're not looking at making games for Xbox Live Arcade because the service is full of ****

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EPIC OWNAGE RIGHT THERE,
starrt of the second cold war? dominateed by espionage, propaganda and bribery? schweet. linkage

They know even if they gave away 90% of the profit back to the dev's its nothing but free cash and what Nintendo needs more than anything right now is the great games not money. They have plenty of money themself with the best selling console and handheld followed by the largest and best selling 1st party support.

Not only will this help Nintendo score some good exclusives at virtually no cost to them, but this will also encourage the "brains" of gaming to say "screw the politics of it all I just want to make games!" Be it on a Wii with motion control or for an HD console They just want to make a living and do what they enjoy. Some may see it as playing dirty I guess but everyone does it its buisness and all this is going to do is give Nintendo fans more of what they are missing.

Added another WiiWare developer, who also didn't want to be named: "Frankly, we're not looking at making games for Xbox Live Arcade because the service is full of ****," he said, pointing towards the service's number of retro remakes.

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El Oh El!

If you replace the word, "remakes" with "titles", he just described what Nintendo's service currently is - all retro titles. That will change when Wiiware arrives, but it's still going to be mostly retro title releases in the foreseeable future. And frankly, if I were to play a retro game I would rather play an updated version, over the version I played whenever the title was originally released. At least then, I would feel I'm paying for some extra work that has gone into remastering the games.

another great find vashivihan. though I did already know about the crap on xbox live arcade. I havent seen much that was good for the wiiware yet, but if what we seen so far is making developers happy, well then it can only mean a good thing for us gamers.

Only problem is where will WiiWare games be stored? I think Nintendo should allow saving and running games directly from SD cards. The files can still be keyed to your hardware to stop piracy.

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Nintendo said they are going to use a special compression software to shrink down Wii-ware titles and then quickly blow them back up just before playing them. Still I'm not sure this will be enough in the end.

Maybe though, we only have so many "Channel" spaces available. If its enough to let us fill every channel slot without using up all the memory I would call it good.
Just use your SD card to transfer what will and will not fit on the wii-channels back and forth.
In the end I think they are going to need some type of extra storage space be it SD/USB Flash/HDD something to make the download junky happy. Hopefully its something as simple as the SD slot just expanding the current storage space. Simple and easy. Everyone uses them anyways for everything else.

With DLC comming you know we are gonna pack the Wii so fast even a box of colon blow wouldn't help.
I'm not sure Nintendos innovation will be able to keep up with their imagination when it comes to how much space we have available and how much fun stuff they give us to cram on it!

Great article. I think it's great that Nintenod has Virtual Console for the classics and then WiiWare for the new-stuff.

Only problem is where will WiiWare games be stored? I think Nintendo should allow saving and running games directly from SD cards. The files can still be keyed to your hardware to stop piracy.

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Well, Nintendo is planning on compressing the WiiWare game files. Then when you want to play a game, it uncompresses, allowing you to play it. Smart move, but they should have done the same with virtual console.

I actually read about this on another website and I found out the reason why they said XBLA is full of **** is because they feel like developers don't have a chance of selling games vs retro games rofl...

Thats why they like WiiWare because WiiWare titles are not retro games, so that gives them a better chance to sell games. It's understandable but to say XBLA (and PSN store for that matter) full of **** just shows the lack of confidence in your own game vs retro games.

But look at Nintendo's own list of classic games! they stay in original form no changes and still sell great.

For XBLA/PSN you see some cool classic's updated with improved graphics and alot also have online play tacked on. They improve on it so much it's borderline a New game with a retro feel. So which game would you buy?
The cheep new one based on an old classic you liked?
Or the cheep New game you never heard of?

Most Gamers arn't risky with there money and get burned far to often on a "low priced game," so they go with what they trust.
Of the list of best sellers 250,000 or more for XBLA 90% are remakes of classics, and with how much you have to sell to make a profit I wouldn't blame any dev for ditching this setup.

It's a better overall move to let the "New guys" come out with the new idea's when it comes to your cheeper downloadable content games. At the least keep them seperate from the classic and retro games in some way.

Nintendo should have put this storage space problem to rest months ago. With actual drive space. Compression is a bandaid. They can do so easily with a simple driver update. No need to release hardware, just make usb drives accessible. They can even make some cash on the deal by selling branding rights to sandisk or someone.

T3kNi9e said:

Thats why they like WiiWare because WiiWare titles are not retro games, so that gives them a better chance to sell games.

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It's a dumb argument on their part. The VC may be separate from WiiWare, but the competition for Wii Points between new and legacy titles is still there. Does XBLA not have sections that divide new and retro?

wezeles said:

But look at Nintendo's own list of classic games! they stay in original form no changes and still sell great.

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You're saying it's a good thing that we don't get decent updates to retro games? Even basic stuff like enabling the Wiimote IR pointer for Operation Wolf? For that matter, why is there a single game, from SNES, n64 or anything else that you can't use the wiimote and nunchuck with and choose your own button/motion configurations? To make it possible, you wouldn't even need to change the game, just tweak the emulator.

If Ninty and MS ever reach a deal on Goldeneye, and Nintendo releases the same old game, and MS releases the beefed up version with online multiplayer, which would you rather have? That question is related to the question of why the big N refuses to make a deal.

But look at Nintendo's own list of classic games! they stay in original form no changes and still sell great.

For XBLA/PSN you see some cool classic's updated with improved graphics and alot also have online play tacked on. They improve on it so much it's borderline a New game with a retro feel. So which game would you buy?
The cheep new one based on an old classic you liked?
Or the cheep New game you never heard of?

Most Gamers arn't risky with there money and get burned far to often on a "low priced game," so they go with what they trust.
Of the list of best sellers 250,000 or more for XBLA 90% are remakes of classics, and with how much you have to sell to make a profit I wouldn't blame any dev for ditching this setup.

It's a better overall move to let the "New guys" come out with the new idea's when it comes to your cheeper downloadable content games. At the least keep them seperate from the classic and retro games in some way.

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There's a reason why I said "It's Understandable" I already know why they find it unfair to compete with retro games.

Also you act like its a bad thing to upgrade retro game. I rather have an updated retro game than the exact same one. Especially when you can download most retro games on the internet for free.

Does updated retro games automatically make them inferior to the originals?

It's a dumb argument on their part. The VC may be separate from WiiWare, but the competition for Wii Points between new and legacy titles is still there. Does XBLA not have sections that divide new and retro?

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No, they don't have sections that divide them. But like you said, WiiWare and VC still compete for the same Wii points so it's the same.

I just think Nintendo is busy as hell right now. I haven't seen the N this busy since NES. I read in an old interview that Nintendo was thinking of updating retro games. But with the Wii's massive success I think they bit off more than they could chew. They never forcasted sales this damn high.
I'm sure Nintendo wants to update its storage compatibility and offer an updated or even a new Super Mario Bros. but they can't. They got too much on their plate.

I'm sure Nintendo wants to update its storage compatibility and offer an updated or even a new Super Mario Bros. but they can't. They got too much on their plate.

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They've repeatedly claimed they don't want to add a hard drive or any other space expansion. For over a year, they've stubbornly insisted that the best solution is to delete games you're not playing and redownload them later when you want to play again.

Not that it's difficult. They can farm out driver development to someone else. Release a driver that makes your standard usb drive accessible.

They're also in a position profit-wise to hire companies to update VC content. It's not as easy to do, but it's doable.

It's time to stop complaining about making money hand over foot and start investing it in their gamers. We scratched their back. Their turn.